


How The Gears Turn

by Tophatssandbowtiess



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Depression, Drug Use, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 06:15:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4008979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tophatssandbowtiess/pseuds/Tophatssandbowtiess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes the gears in his head moved too slow, and it was as if he couldn't feel anything.<br/>Sometimes the gears in his head moved too fast, and it was as if he could feel /everything/.<br/>What he really wants is for the gears to just stop turning all together.</p><p>Alternatively, Tsukishima is depressed and suicidal and should really reach out to someone before it's too late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How The Gears Turn

Tsukishima Kei never knew how to describe it. He wasn’t sad. He wasn’t lonely. He wasn’t depressed. He couldn’t use _those_ words… no… he wasn’t one of _those_ people. He wasn’t _pathetic_ , like them. What he felt was more abstract than just sadness.

What he felt was like TV static. Flipping through hundreds of channels, but never finding anything on. Like the gears in his head didn’t work right, could never bring the picture to the screen. Like he was broken.

That’s the only way he could ever describe it to himself, and even _then_ it didn’t seem to make complete sense.

It was a feeling in his stomach, constantly heavy.

It was a feeling in his chest, a pressure never seeming to yield.

It was a feeling in his skin, a tingling, an itch.

It was a feeling of gravity, always on him.

Sometimes the gears in his head moved too slowly. He wouldn’t be able to think straight. He would hardly be able to think at all. Time would pass by slowly. Dragging. Lagging. Every second an hour. Every hour a day. His attention gone. Never focused. He couldn’t find the strength to move. Get out of bed. Go to school. Play volleyball. He just couldn’t do it. How tired he felt. How much he wanted to sleep. Sleep forever. His eyes would never close, though. Tired as he was, he could never sleep. Only stare, as time barely moved. When the gears were slow like this, he couldn’t feel anything.

Sometimes, however, the gears in his head moved too fast, and suddenly he felt _everything._ It was overwhelming to him, he could never seem to calm down, and when it started to speed up like that, there was nothing he could do except wait it out in a frenzy of fierce and strong emotions all escaping through him at once as though they were all trapped before, waiting for the right time to barge out. It was never the right time for him, though, and things would go by fast and fierce, blurry and hasty leaving him angry and confused. This was when the itch in his skin would get scratched, when anger was exploding from him along with messy tears, wanted screams never leaving his lips, but hitches of breath and gasps for air instead. How desperately he’d want things to slow down and to not feel anything anymore, and it seems to him like it will _never_ stop and it will _always_ be like this, how he can’t remember a time when things were _not_ like this, when things were _not_ eating at him like they are when the gears move too fast.

When the gears turn slowly, he can’t remember what it’s like when they’re fast. When the gears turn fast, he can’t remember what it’s like when they’re slow. He always wants the other before he gets it, like one wants heat in winter and cool in summer.

Tonight, things happened to be moving a little fast for him.

As he scratches and tears at the skin on his arms and his thighs, as the blood stains his hands, gets under his nails and on his sheets, the itch in his skin starts to subside.

On those nights when the gears move too fast, and when he releases his anger and his feelings with the sharp nails of his hands, his only weapon, things start to slow down for him. He’s back to feeling nothing. Nothing, except for a sting on his skin and a feeling of patheticness that refuses to leave him.

He wishes he could stop existing. That he never even did in the first place. If things could just _end_ for him, if things could just _stop_. He feels done flipping through the channels, finding static, feeling broken. If he could just shut the TV _off_ , then he would… In a heartbeat, he would.

_And he can._

He looks at the orange bottle of stolen prescription on his nightstand, always there and always waiting. He reaches for it and rolls it back and forth on the palm of his hand, blood stains still on the bottle from the last fast paced night. He shakes it around, hears the contents rattle, and opens it. He pours a couple pills into his hand and clutches them in a tight, bloody, shaking fist. How _easy_ it would be… How _quick_ it would be… _How pathetic it would be._ He dumps them back in the bottle, shuts the lid, and throws it hard against the wall.

He wipes his stained hands against his sheets, already damp from the tears and the sweat and the blood on his thighs. He picks up his phone, searching up _Yamaguchi Tadashi_ in his contact list and stares at the message screen. He feels the need to talk to him, but he doesn’t know what he’d say. It’s not like he’d care about Tsukki or what he did, what he was going through. Why would he? Nobody does, and nobody ever would. Not a single person. Not even Tsukishima himself.

But he still feels the urge to ask his friend for help. To spill his guts completely and lie bare, open, and wounded, showing his weakness only to him. He could help him.  _No, he’ll mock me and take me a joke._ He could heal him. _No, he’ll laugh at how stupid I’ve been._

Tsukishima just needed to reach out a little, and deep inside he knew that to be the truth. He knew that his friend would not judge him, that he would be there whenever he needed him. However, his irrational fear got the better of him.

 _He doesn’t care_ , Tuskishima thinks as he clenches his phone. He swears at himself for even thinking of asking his friend for help. How pathetic he was. How disgusting, how vile, how pitiful. He throws his phone across the room where it hits the wall and lands besides the orange bottle of his temptation.

They’d lay there till the morning, distanced from Tsukishima, reminders of both the things he could have done that night…

_Both the things he was far too cowardly to do…_

**Author's Note:**

> If this isn't how you think depression should be depicted then I'm sorry, I just used my own feelings and experience as a guide to write.  
> I also started to write this a vent fic i guess. Make my favorite characters do bad things so /I/ wont, I guess ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Also! This is my first fic since 2013 so i apologize ahaha. Letting me know how to edit this or improve would be much appreciated :)
> 
> Lastlyyyy, I've got the whole story planned out but I don't think I'll update or continue unless people want me to (i dont really count on many people reading this anyway sooo)
> 
> no wait I lied okay one more thing.  
> While typing about what it's like when the 'gears are slow' I tried to write in choppy short sentences, and while describing what it's like when the 'gears are fast' I tried to type in run-ons.
> 
> If you guys don't think that worked very well please let me know ;-;


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